adventures in sculpting, painting, writing and travel

Film

Dec 17, 2010

Movie Premiere night! Hard to believe it's been 25 years since the first visit to the grid. Headed to the 10 o'clock showing at the Real3D theater with a fellow geek who was only one when the first made it's debut. Looking forward to seeing those giant inverted U ships rumble across the screen. New Light Cycle designs look sharp, but I'm secretly very pleased to see that they left the Recognizers alone. Some designs stand 'the test of time.

Dec 19, 2009

The movie was awesome. The 3D takes about 15 minutes to adjust to in your brain, but once you stop thinking about it, it just blows you away. The flying scenes in particular were exciting and visceral in a way that put you on the back of a Ikran and reminded me why I love to fly so much now.

Neville Page designed the Mountain Banshees, and it's worth going to the movie just to see the scenes where our hero must climb up into the floating mountains to find and bond with his mount.

The kids loved the movie and the messages and have not stopped babbling about all the themes since.

Don't listen to the haters, it's a work of art and is thoroughly enjoyable. Cameron created an entire world, right down to the fauna and the bugs, and every frame is full of detail and imagination. I particularly loved the trees and flowers and the third and fourth level of activity going on as the characters talk. There's plants that zoop down into the ground if you so much as touch them (with an amazingly satisfying whoop noise) and willowy trees that reach out to touch you if you draw near. Bugs that have wings that force them to spin around dizzily, their little eyes saying, "Oh dear, hear we go again." Every step through the forest creates a bioluminescent reaction in the moss and footsteps linger for a second or two, like in wet sand. The world is fully realized.

I just loved it.

Make sure you find a theater near you that has "Real3D" as that's the best projector and screen you can see it on. I'll check it out in Imax later this week and report my experience with that, but I was afraid it would be too hard to make out what was happening on the giant dome.

Loved seeing Sigourney Weaver in a leading roll - she's never looked better. Sam Worthington did a great job. But really the film belongs to Zoe Saldana - she was wonderful. Horner's score was a bit derivative of his earlier themes, I kept waiting for Enya to join in for the Titanic love song - but that's like criticizing Santa Claus for always wearing red: you know what you're going to get with Horner, and perhaps it will grow on me.

The message starts out simple - and that seems to be all the movie's critics can latch onto - but there are layers of themes and questions asked inside the broader picture. Alexander, who is seven, came out of the film and started talking about how both sides learned lessons, and how you never give up even when you think you've lost everything.

The ideas of whether the "dream walkers" are real creatures, and do they have a soul - and in what body does that soul reside? Those were interesting to me. The concept that the whole planet was interconnected in ways that we must only dream about - or try to re-create via social media and internet - was fascinating.

Dec 18, 2009

It's been a long time since I sat down in a theater to see a James Cameron film. The last time, I was sitting with my sister in the Park Road Theaters - the main screen there was massive back then, before they subdivided the space and put in smaller screens - and we munched popcorn and talked about Aliens, Ridley Scott, The Abyss, the advances in technology, and the media coverage of Titanic. It was to be a disaster of a movie, if one was to believe the critics. A gigantic waste of time and money.

We all know how that turned out.

Here it is ten years later, and the critics are still saying the same things: rumors of grossly inflated budgets, wooden dialog and weak characterizations. I don't understand the cynicism or the hate. The guy's an artist. He makes the movies he wants to make. He's a world builder, and a visionary.

You want a Scorsese movie, go see a Scorsese movie. You want to see what 500 million dollars worth of cutting edge film technology will get you? Go see Avatar. Cameron can put together an action sequence like no other film-maker in the world. Remember the 30 minute scramble through the guts of the Titanic as they try to escape the ever-rising waters? Remember when Ripley and the marines discover the aliens inside the terra-forming complex the first time, and their narrow escape in the battle tank? Remember the bridge scene from True Lies with Jamie Lee Curtis, Arnold and the Harriers? I could go on and on.

And tonight I get to go see a world no one has ever seen before, because until now it's only existed in an artist's head - and has been created by a team of amazingly talented men and women who share in his vision.

My three kids will be on the edge of their seats - and I''ll be right there with them. Grinning and gripping Alex's hand. We get to hear a new James Horner score. We get to see fabulous new creatures.

Who

Philip Williams is the author of The Griffin. He is also a sculptor, a painter, and the father of three amazing beasties.

What

Enjoy simple pleasures. Push the envelope. Love what you do. Take nothing for granted.

Why

Never let go of hope. One day you will see that it all has finally come together. What you have always wished for has finally come to be. You will look back and laugh at what has passed and you will ask yourself, 'How did I get through all of that?'